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The virtue of martial arts

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As is well known, martial arts were not fully introduced into the United States until around the 1940’s.  It wasn’t until the late seventies and early eighties that martial arts started to really catch on as a business.  During the eighties, the infantile martial arts industry underwent a booming growth, a growth which continues today as the martial arts industry passes towards maturity.

This maturity, however, has come at a price.  Instead of being recognized as the traditional art form that it is, martial arts came to be recognized by many simply as a new sport.  New students flocked into dojos and studios all across the country, eager to learn more about this exotic new sport.  At first this recognition was a well-needed help in allowing the martial arts industry to gain a foothold in the modern market, but it must be recognized today, however, that this marketing strategy of martial arts as a sport has its limitations.

Modern customers want more from a service today than just the knowledge to kick and punch.  Although, martial arts as a sport was a good notion that helped the industry get onto its feet, martial arts must face the fact that, within the sports industry, they have a great deal of fierce competition.  Though it’s true that many people will continue practicing martial arts on the sporting level and enjoy it a great deal, martial arts will never compete as well as other, more established sports.  But martial arts does have a special advantage in that it has much more to offer than just its value as a sport.

Martial arts is more than just a kick and a punch.  Martial arts are an art form that can fully enhance an individual’s life.  This statement is the business strategy that martial arts schools must latch onto if they want to completely realize their full potential for the future.  The market for this type of service is ripe.  People want a service that can provide the structure, discipline, encouragement, and energy needed to meet their day to day responsibilities.  Martial arts can provide all of this and more.

• Mental Discipline
• Self-Esteem
• Spiritual Well-Being
• Patience
• Respect for Self and Elders
• Culture

Every one of these are virtues that people can use to assist themselves in all aspects of everyday life.  Mental discipline keeps a person on track and gives them the focus they need to meet the responsibilities of work, home, and family.  Self-esteem will give every student the confidence they need to face their everyday responsibilities without hesitation.  The happiness and satisfaction that they receive from their success will lead them to a greater state of spiritual well-being.

Teaching these virtues is the key to success for martial arts in the future.  Instructors must turn their sights back to the values that martial arts were originally meant to teach.  They can pass on to their students patience and self respect.  The instructor must make his students feel proud of themselves and their families.  They will learn to respect their elders and superiors, and in the end what the instructors will be passing on won’t be so much a set of positive values, but a piece of culture.  These are the lessons that martial arts schools must master and teach if they wish to reach their potential for the future.

Furthermore, our modern martial arts instructors must turn themselves in the right direction to meet this need.  They themselves must be prepared to handle these new students.  This means reversing another trend that has occurred during martial arts’ period of growth and expansion.  When martial arts began to turn in the direction of business, many instructors began to develop their skills as businessmen so that they would be better able to fill their market.  As can be seen by the wide-spread growth of martial arts schools across the country, many of these newly born businessmen were quite successful.  Some have become so successful that they’ve begun to forget what it is they were there to do in the first place—teach.

Today’s martial arts instructors need to focus their attention on becoming better teachers that are better able to handle the needs of modern students.  They need to learn the basic principles of teaching, and psychology, as well as child development.  This knowledge will prepare them to teach their students the knowledge they wish to know.  Teaching moral values and mental discipline isn’t the same as teaching simple kicks and punches or even advanced tournament techniques.  The instructor must learn to deal with each and every student on an individual level, finding the proper techniques to motivate and inspire everyone in their own way.  Inner values take time, patience, and knowledge.  But more than anything, they require effort, the effort of both a student and a teacher.

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